


Guns and Roses

by teashi_no_kono_ito_hodoite



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overwatch - Freeform, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 18:51:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21141527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teashi_no_kono_ito_hodoite/pseuds/teashi_no_kono_ito_hodoite
Summary: The pain was beyond screaming, beyond tears, beyond the spectrum of human existence; the only constant being fear and a phantom taste of roses.





	Guns and Roses

**Author's Note:**

> This is from a WIP I started last summer and decided to post as a one-shot, hoping to get enough inspiration from feedback to actually complete it. *fingers crossed* 
> 
> But just a warning. This is gonna be pain. A lot of pain. I don’t want to spoil anything but if you’re triggered by Suicide, Self Harm, Dying or just general depressing Romeo/Juliet level tragic type of shit, please don’t read this. If you read this and attack me for it’s contents later, I promise that I will not give a damn bc I warned you and you read this anyway. “Exit Tab” exists for a reason, use it.

The cough had started almost a week ago and just wouldn’t go away. Not really getting worse, but not getting any better, it just _was_.

Reyes scowled and kicked the punching bag in front of him with just a little more force than was strictly necessary, but damn if the feeling of pure force vibrating through his leg at the point of contact didn’t feel fucking good. The SEC program has them under constant medical surveillance, so he would’ve been booted at the first sign of genuine illness. As it were, the cough didn’t do much except occur at random moments, cause minimal discomfort and, more than anything, just annoyed the piss out of him.

  
“You okay, Reyes?”  
  
Morrison smiled worryingly. How the fuck the other man managed to portray genuine concern, all while maintaining his megawatt smile, was beyond Reyes.  
  
He grunted and shrugged his shoulders, “Nothing to worry about, otherwise you’d know about it.”  
  
Morrison shook his head and walked to his own corner of the gym.  
  
They’d been paired together at the start of the program and, surprising everyone, actually got along. There was no catalyst that forced them into it; no mission gone wrong, no bridal carrying through a warzone, no late night drunk confessions. Just one day Reyes realized that he trusted the blond Boy Scout with his life, and somehow he knew that Morrison felt the same.  
  
They weren’t close, not really. If asked, Reyes would be hard pressed to remember anything about the guy. Heck, half the time he forgets his first name isn’t Morrison. Morrison probably would say the same about him. Beyond the battlefield and the infirmary, they were near strangers, but where they were, those were the only places that mattered.  
  
It didn’t mater that Morrison didn’t know his life story, or that he didn’t know his. They knew each other in the ways that counted, in ways that kept them alive and sane, in his place of too much death and too little answers.  
  
Morrison caught his eye from across the room and somehow his smile grew even wider, winking playfully as he motioned to the sparing area.  
  
Reyes started coughing again. “Fuck.” 

  
  
The cough went away, after awhile. He didn’t know what caused it, or why it stopped, but as the months and years passed he forgot all about it. Until it came back, that is, five years later at Ana’s wedding.  
  
He had been wearing his dress uniform, still a bit too tight at the shoulders since he had never bothered to get it altered it in all the years since he got it. Not like he wore it often enough to make the hassle and expense even worth it. He was regretting it a bit in that moment, though, the Mediterranean heat bearing down on all attending, making the uniform cling to his body uncomfortably.  
  
The ceremony itself and the moments leading up to it were a blur. He and Morrison had arrived together, and were sitting side by side, three rows back, along with the rest of the Overwatch members who were attending. They hadn’t said much on the way there, hadn’t said much before the ceremony. Maybe it was the threat of war that made them silent, but then, they never really had to use a lot of words to communicate even before.  
  
The bride and groom kissed, then made their way down the aisle to the standing ovation of friends and family. Lena had arranged some weirdass Cupid service, and now rose petals were raining from the heavens in unnecessarily expensive display of beauty. They’ll just sign it off as company expense, it was the least they could do after all. Ana held their ragtag team of heroes together, and if she wanted a rose petal shower at her wedding then goddamnit she’d get one.  
  
It was a scene from a fairytale, Ana and her husband smiling as if they hadn’t a care in the world, surrounded by loved ones, bathed in sunlight and flowers. The roars of the well wishers and the overal stifling pressense of those standing around him almost wiped the smile right off of Reyes’ face, though. Morrison turned to him, laughing good naturedly, his eyes shining with a hint of sympathy as they always did when he sensed Reyes dislike of crowds.  
  
Far from pity, Reyes sensed comradery in that blue-eyed gaze. Neither of them were much for crowds, Morrison was just better at hiding it. Neither of them would let that get in the way of enjoying their teammate’s wedding, however. Reyes grinned back knowingly, Morrison nodding his head in an unspoken agreement to spar once they got back to base. The years had only added to their trust and understanding of each other making them a force to be reckoned with, both in and off the battlefield.  
  
The sun shone through the trees above turning Morrison’s hair into a pure gold; Reyes chest clenched painfully and he coughed into his fist. With all the rose petals being tossed into their air around them, he tossed the bloodied ones in his palm aside without thought.  


  
The fire of the bottom-shelf whiskey did little to drown the taste of roses on his tongue. He probably shouldn’t be drinking, not when he was going to have a proper face-to-face meeting with Morrison for the first time in months come morning.  
  
Jesse slapped his back, prompting another cough, which was easily stifled in his fist.  
  
“C’mon partner! Sure you an’ the Commander ain’t on speaking terms as of late, but it’s not like the two of you were men of many words to being with!”  
  
Reyes scowled, “Why are you even here, Jesse? You ditched Blackwatch; ditched your team. And I’m not your partner, cowboy.”  
  
”Now don’t go biting my head off just because I wanted to check in on ya! I may have left Blackwatch behind for... personal reasons; but ya’ll are still kin to me.”  
  
The cowboy bumped their shoulders together, huffing out a laugh at the way Reyes twitched.  
  
”Never thought I’d live to see the day! Yer actually nervous about this... ya know all you gotta do is blink those brown puppy eyes at Jack ‘n the man’ll roll over for you, right?”  
  
“That’s what I’m afraid of. We haven’t seen eye to eye for a while, yet he still lets me get away with so much...”  
  
He shook his head and downed the rest of his drink with a grimace. Getting up, he gently shoved McCree aside as he made his way to the door.  
  
”Thanks for everything, Jesse. Maybe I’ll buy you a drink next time we see each other.”  
  
Jesse laughed, “If I got a drink every time you offered my liver would’ve failed years ago, Gabe.”  
  
Reyes chuckled, ”Good thing you never took me up on the offer then.” He shut the saloon door behind him.  
  
That was the last time Jesse McCree saw Gabriel Reyes. The next time they would meet, the former Blackwatch commander would go by Reaper and aim his shotgun right at his friend’s chest.  


The days, weeks, months, maybe even years, passed in a haze of pure fear. From feeling such extreme pain to the point where he couldn’t even remember his name to an even more terrifying Nothingness, he- it, didn’t know what was worse. The terror of not being able to feel, of not even existing beyond a frayed sense of conciousness, slipping in and out of solid form, deconstructing and reconstructing at impossible rates, or the all encompassing sensation of nerves being flayed raw, of dying in every conceivable way, over and over and over again. It was beyond screaming, beyond tears, beyond the spectrum of human existence, the only constant being fear and a phantom taste of roses. It clinged to a memory long lost and created the mask for the wraith that will become known as Reaper.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I tagged it as MCD bc Reyes is dead guys. That’s my HC and I’m sticking with it.


End file.
